Rundfunkchor Berlin »Rote Messe« Trailer

Choir meets theatre

Gain exclusive insights into the project and discover it from the diverse perspectives of our choir director Rachel-Sophia Dries, chief conductor Gijs Leenaars, director Anna-Sophie Mahler and actress Ruth Rosenfeld.

Trailer with choir director Rachel-Sophia Dries

Trailer mit Chief Conductor Gijs Leenaars

Trailer with director Anna-Sophie Mahler

Trailer with actress Ruth Rosenfeld

With the »Rote Messe« project, we are once again placing choral music in unusual contexts and breaking with the conventions of the classical concert business in the current season. Under the musical direction of chief conductor Gijs Leenaars, the choir will perform Gioachino Rossini’s »Petite Messe solennelle« on 25 and 26 May 2024 in a production by director Anna-Sophie Mahler. Excerpts from Rossini’s work will be deliberately combined with Arnold Schönberg’s »Pierrot lunaire« as well as Luigi Dallapiccola’s »Canti di prigionia« and Giacomo Carrisimi’s »Plorate filii Israel«. The venue is the former industrial hall MaHalla in Berlin-Oberschöneweide. In this setting, Mahler and the choir stage a decadent feast that is literally disrupted by the figure of »Pierrot Lunaire« – played and sung by actress Ruth Rosenfeld. The result is a tale of the changing times: of privileges under attack, of a society on the brink of upheaval. The audience is part of the action, the hall is both stage and auditorium.